City council in the Icelandic town of Kópavogur has passed comprehensive legislation regarding the city’s cats, with the aim to make life better for the town’s human and feline residents alike.
Cat owners will now be obligated to tag their cats, have them de-wormed regularly, and see that they are wearing a bell during nesting season for Iceland’s numerous sea birds (Kópavogur is a coastal town). Owners are also expected to make sure that their cats do not disturb their neighbors or damage property.
Guðríður Arnardóttir, a Kópavogur city councilperson for the Social Democrats, has been a long advocate of cat regulation. She has fought for years to establish such legislation, telling Vísir last July that Kópavogur was the only Icelandic municipality without legislation regarding cat ownership. Conservatives, true to form, opposed any such regulation, but with the arrival of a new city council majority last spring, Guðríður took up the cause again with her colleagues.
Guðríður told Vísir that the new regulations still need to be polished before they take effect, and that while there are differences of opinion over the finer points, all of city council favors cat laws.
One other part of the legislation states that cats that are not tagged can be taken into custody by authorities and held for up to a week. If they are not picked up by their rightful owners at that time, they will be put down. Guðríður emphasizes that they won’t go so far as to ban cats from being able to wander the streets at will; just that they need to be properly tagged.
There is as yet no word on whether or not owners will be required to spay and neuter their cats, but the Grapevine hopes to hear from Guðríður in the near future.